Clothing articles are currently available in a wide range of styles. A popular theme has been to form the article with a three-dimensional object, or the appearance of a three-dimensional object. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,081 describes a garment, such as a T-shirt, having a partially complete design placed on the shirt's front side. One or more holes are cut into the garment at locations within the partial design. The holes are configured to be physically and functionally related to the design to allow portions of the user's flesh to appear through the hole and complete the design. U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,149 describes a T-shirt having a design in which actual three-dimensional elements are attached to T-shirt. U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,385 describes a T-shirt having an actual hologram sheet displayed through a window of a flexible frame member.
While each of these techniques are visually interesting, they all have disadvantages. The '081 arrangement would likely cause the wearer to become cold when the garment is worn due to its various cut-outs. The '149 arrangement has three-dimensional objects that making cleaning the garment difficult. The '385 arrangement appears to be expensive to manufacture and also appears to require special handling during cleaning.
Thus, a need exists for a simple, effective method of forming a three-dimensional display on a garment and such a resulting garment. The optimal method would not require expensive manufacturing techniques and would be easily washed. The present invention is directed to fulfilling these needs and others as described below.